When Arnold Schwarzenegger won the California recall
election with some 30 percent of the Hispanic vote,
there was the usual commentary predicting that we are
just one amnesty away from an emerging Hispanic
Republican majority…even though Schwarzenegger's
positions on immigration-related issues, as far as
they could be determined, were the sort that are
supposed to repel Hispanics—and even though the exit
polls
showed his victory to be more of a validation of the
Sailer Strategy than Karl Rove's fantasies.

Just look at American blacks and gay marriage—most the
controversial social issue being debated in America
right now (with the possible exception of
immigration). The U.S. Supreme Court's
Lawrence v. Texasdecision and the recent
Goodridge
ruling by the
Massachusetts State Supreme Court increase the
likelihood that existing legal barriers to gay marriage
will prove inadequate. This will force a pitched
political battle, quite possibly in time for the 2004
presidential election.

But it isn't just the courts that are driving gay
marriage. So too is public opinion, which is far more
divided on the subject than it was when the debate first
hit the national scene
back in 1996. Polls show that
support for gay marriage is rising among key
demographic groups (although there are some signs that a
backlash against judicial activism could change that).

In fact, opposition among both groups has hardly budged
at all from 1996 levels. In 1996, 84 percent of white
evangelicals opposed gay marriage; 83 percent do today.
Similarly, 65 percent of African-Americans opposed gay
marriage in 1996 compared to 64 percent today. A Gallup
poll also found blacks opposed to gay marriage by 65
percent to 28 percent.

Civil rights leader Walter Fauntroy, a former aide to
Martin Luther King, Jr. and cofounder of the
Congressional Black Caucus, has
endorsed the federal marriage amendment, which is
intended to
prevent judge-imposed legalization of same-sex
marriage. Sitting with him on the
board of advisors of the Alliance for Marriage are
several leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church and a bishop of the Church of God in Christ, two
of the largest predominantly black denominations in the
United States. Ray Hammond, president of the Ten Point
coalition, an ecumenical group focused on issues
pertaining to black and Hispanic youths in the Boston
area,
testified in favor of a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage before the Massachusetts state
senate subcommittee on the Constitution.

And gay marriage is not the only social issue where
blacks side with conservatives. According to an ABC
News/Beliefnet poll that found overall public support
for legal abortion at its
lowest level since 1995, blacks are more likely than
whites to be opposed. Blacks were also more likely to
oppose embryonic stem-cell research. A bare 48 percent
plurality of blacks favored such research while 44
percent were opposed; among whites, the margin was 60
percent in favor and only 29 percent opposed. Polls have
consistently found between 70 and 80 percent of blacks
in favor of school prayer. Blacks are also more likely
than whites to support the various permutations of
school choice, including vouchers.

And on the National Question, 56 percent of California's
blacks voted for Proposition 187, the attempt to deny
illegal immigrants tax monies, in 1994. Nationally,
blacks are among the strongest supporters of immigration
reduction and making English the official language of
the United States. On immigration, one can argue that
blacks are more socially conservative than many Beltway
social conservative mouthpieces.

(For that matter, it is also fair to note that
Hispanics and other minority groups hold more sensible
positions on these issues than immigration enthusiasts
generally give them credit for.)

Economist and nationally syndicated columnist Walter
Williams, in his guest appearances on Rush Limbaugh's
radio talk show, has been
known to argue that blacks have more in common with
and Jerry Falwell than white liberals, while Jesse
Jackson and Maxine Waters have more in common with
"white hippies." This should not be surprising. A
majority of
blacks are evangelical Protestants. Their churches
are theologically similar to those that form the
base of the Christian right.

In 1996, the Republicans nominated Bob Dole, who during
his long congressional career had voted in favor of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965, and Jack Kemp, one of the GOP's leading proponents
of minority outreach. But they won only 12 percent of
the black vote.

Moral: Blacks can watch the "700 Club" without voting
with the Christian Coalition.

Even some blacks who espouse conservative social causes
haven't exactly assumed the political profile of Alan
Keyes. Fauntroy marched alongside Al Sharpton—who, by
the way, is one of the few Democratic presidential
candidates willing to endorse full gay marriage—in
protest against President Bush's inauguration and
denounced him as an illegitimate president. Similarly,
Hammond's public opposition to gay marriage was so
widely reported in the Boston press precisely because he
had been so reliably liberal on most other issues
throughout his career.

There's hardly a social conservative in the
Congressional Black Caucus—Reps. Sanford Bishop of
Georgia and Harold Ford of Tennessee will occasionally
vote for late-term abortion bans—and not a single
Republican. The last black Republican in Congress, J.C.
Watts, did not join while Gary Franks is not likely to
recall his membership as the most pleasant experience of
his congressional service. Both Franks and Watts
represented substantially white electorates. Although
there may be a disconnect between the black political
elite and most black voters on some issues, there isn't
on party identification—blacks overwhelmingly identify
as Democrats, while those identifying as Republicans
range from 5 to 10 percent.

So why aren't blacks "natural Republicans"? Of course,
there are complicated historical reasons for the
dramatic shift of African-American voters from the
party of Lincoln to the party of
Franklin D. Roosevelt. But there are also a few
simple reasons:

Bread-and-butter
economics issues trump social issues.
Democrats are the party most interested in protecting
means-tested
government income assistance programs,
racial preferences and
income redistribution. You can argue that blacks
would be better off in the long run without
preferential policies and
welfare dependency. You would probably be right.
But the simple fact is that many blacks benefit from
such programs
now. Asking them to vote against them is asking
them to vote against their own perceived
self-interest.

Identity politics.
As the existence of the Congressional Black Caucus,
NAACP and the Rainbow Coalition/Operation PUSH
demonstrate, blacks have
organized politically along
racial lines. They tend to identify themselves as
a distinct minority community. The multicultural
Democrats are substantially better at cultivating
black identity politics. Whatever its merits,
conservative color-blind rhetoric doesn't seem to
help. Many black voters perceive it as at best
insincere, and at worst an attack on black cultural
identity. Conservatives need to come up with a better
response to identity politics than "cut it out."

Aspiration vs.
reality.
Black social conservatism hasn't ameliorated
black social problems. For example, pro-life
sentiments must be contrasted with the black abortion
rate. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute,
black women are nearly three times as likely to
undergo abortions as white women.
[See
Peter Brimelow's Charticle—PDF].
While 12 percent of the population, blacks account for
more than 30 percent of abortions. Blacks also have
lower marriage rates and, at 69 percent, the highest
out-of-wedlock birth rate. The impact of this
disconnect on black voting patterns is unclear.

I
may be a more enthusiastic
advocate of GOP minority outreach than some other
VDARE.COM contributors. But I recognize that facts are
facts. The example of black voters proves that it takes
more than moral traditionalism to insure support for the
Republican Party. To bring more Hispanics into the
GOP, what is called for is a repeat of the policy that
assimilated America's last Great Wave of immigrants and
made Reagan Democrats, and eventually Bush Republicans,
out of them: an immigration pause.

The very thing that we
always hear will doom the Republican Party may be
the one thing that can save it.

Or Republicans can simply
wait patiently and hope that everyone who is more
morally conservative than secular white social liberals
will eventually pull the lever for them.

But the recent history of black voters suggests that
they will be waiting a long time.